


One plate, one chair

by BlackIbis (WanderingBandurria)



Series: ComfortMiniFest [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Depression, Ficlet, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Sirius Black Raises Harry Potter, United States
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26711029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingBandurria/pseuds/BlackIbis
Summary: Remus moves away from England to study, leaving all the aftermath of the war behind - including Sirius and Harry.Somehow, he's not as happy about this as he expected.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: ComfortMiniFest [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931170
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	One plate, one chair

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! this was written for Wolfstar Comfort Minifest, hosted by SwottyPotter over Tumblr. This was for day seven, where the theme was returning. I hope you may give this sequence of fics a chance, I loved digging in these topics and the last ones of this collection are much more fluffy.
> 
> Please consider that this deals with grief, portrays depressive thoughts and it’s quite sad, although it has a hopeful ending (promise!). There are also a couple more explicit sexual references that hint at smut, and some swear words.
> 
> As usual, I owe a lot to my beta, LikeABellThroughTheNight, without whom I wouldn't have been able to participate in this minifest. Still, if you spot any typo, they are my responsibility, but please let me know in the comments because I like working on improving my English.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this!

He closes the door to the small room that he can barely call _livable in_. A room with a single bed, a table and a chair, a fridge, a burner, a couple of shelves and a sliding door which leads to a bathroom that has just enough space to stand under the shower, or sit on the toilet, shouldn’t be called a flat. It’s just something that can drive anyone crazy because of the lack of space.

Still, he should be feeling at peace. He’s lived in worse conditions, so his heart should be beating fast with excitement at the opportunity of _starting over_ , but instead, he feels incredibly lonely. He takes his trunk out from his pocket and restores it to its normal size, and with that, he no longer has space to stand by the bed. He sighs and sits on the plastic chair at the table, taking the items out of his welcome package - a teacup, a bag of tea, a packet of instant coffee, two packets of sugar, a lolly. Some meal tickets so he can eat dinner in the housing dining hall for a week. A toothbrush.

That last one is a bit weird, isn’t it? Shouldn’t people come here with their own toothbrushes? And how come there’s no toothpaste?

He grabs the teacup and turns the water tap as hot as it can go. He thinks miserably that he barely has enough money to buy food, a plate, a pan and a pot, so the kettle will have to wait. He puts the teabag in the cup and sips the lukewarm water that barely passes as tea.

Everything is so quiet that there’s nothing to drown his thoughts out. He drinks the rest of his tea, trying to stop the words repeating in his head, _this is the second biggest mistake of your life_. He switches the light off and without undressing, he drops onto the bed.

He almost lets himself cry, but he manages to stop the tears. It’s the right thing to do, he tries to convince himself. _Harry is safer without me. Sirius is better off without me. He probably hates me and I’m supposed to hate him too_ , he repeats to himself. 

He falls asleep with his chest feeling hollow.

\---

“Are you excited to be here?” his neighbour asks him quietly one afternoon, while the two of them sip on their teacups in silence from across each other, resting their weights on the counters of the common room kitchenette. 

He tries to lie, to say _yes_ , because he had applied over a year ago to study here, at one of the most prestigious universities that has a wizarding programme in the USA, in spite of how much Sirius had yelled at him _there’s a fucking war going on, Remus, and you are thinking of moving to fucking America to study fucking defensive spells? We don’t need you studying them halfway across the world, we need you here, using them_. He had applied even though Sirius had kissed him and fucked him and Remus had cried in his arms, because _there was a war raging and his mother was dead and Sirius might be a spy._

He should lie, because he had taken the letter of acceptance, the money that his parents had left him, and his trunk, still unpacked from when he left Sirius’ flat - _his and Sirius'_ , at some point -, and had left England after James’ and Lily’s funeral, after kissing Harry’s cheek, even though he had been in Sirius’ arms. He had managed to disentangle his wrist from Sirius’ fingers even though _Peter was the traitor and now he is in Azkaban and we can make this work, Remus, you can stay here, we can do this together._ He had avoided those eyes that had looked at him with pain, horror and guilt etched all over them, and had dismissed Sirius’ words - _Remus, I’m sorry_ -. He had taken his plane on time, because he _wanted_ to leave everything behind, because studying here was his dream, and Harry would be safer with Sirius, without a werewolf to put him at risk and make his life even more complicated. 

He and Sirius had never been _anything_ for what mattered, so he shouldn’t feel guilty for not staying with him to raise Harry. 

Harry doesn’t need him. Sirius doesn’t need him.

He pulls out of the memories to think again about the question, _are you excited to be here?_ and the memory of Lily helping him to apply, telling him _it’s the right thing for you, Remus, if you stay here you’ll be registered by the Ministry and sent to a camp, you need to leave while you still can, don’t listen to Sirius_ , is too much for him to bear. 

“Not really,” he says, taking another sip of his tea. “The tea here is horrible and the weather too dry,” and the girl smiles sadly at him, nodding.

\---

He has one plate, one glass, one cup, a fork, a spoon and a knife, two pots, one pan, and a wooden spoon, and somehow, everything is dirty.

He prefers doing the dishes in the Muggle way, so that he has less free time. That way, his mind can’t wander into banned topics that still pop up in his mind, even after three months in the United States. 

But doing the dishes doesn’t stop him from thinking; not always, not really. He might be thinking of his research, and suddenly, a memory will assault him - _Sirius’ smile, James’ frown, Lily looking desperately at him, asking him to please, please take care of Harry if something ever happen to them, Peter telling him “are you sure that Sirius wouldn’t go back to his family for his brother?”, Harry crying in Sirius’ arms, reaching with his chubby hands for Remus, begging for him to pick him up, his face full of snot and Sirius’ hands shaking, while he tries to catch his eye..._

This time he’s humming idly to the melody of _Changes_ , but it’s not a memory that floods him. No, it’s a fucking _life realization_ \- it’s been a good day, his supervisor congratulated him for his hard work, his neighbour gave him half a casserole and he had a fag in the afternoon with a colleague who has interesting theories about merpeople and grindylows, so really, there’s no indicator that anything is going wrong, except for his incapacity to cry or talk about the past or _think_ about his friends except in out-of-context, uncontrollable memories.

So there’s not really a reason to think that things are not _just fine, thank you very much,_ and still… still, everything is wrong. His plate slips from his soapy hands and breaks in tiny pieces in the sink.

He doesn’t care.

His fear of fucking things up is not gone just because he’s no longer in England. It’s not gone after him _running away._ If anything, he gave himself another way to be unhappy. He’s alone and lonely and _miserable_ and he _thinks_ Sirius doesn’t need him, nor does Harry, but, and he swallows, _he_ needs them.

Is he so selfish that he’d be willing to put them at risk just because he needs them? 

Would he be putting them at risk? Magical newspapers here talk about Harry Potter being raised by his Godfather in hiding - no pictures of them have been taken since the Potters’ funeral - and the whole Order, or what is left of it, are on the lookout for them, keeping them safe. Remus knows.

A whole Order that also knows that he’s a Werewolf and still sent him a letter a week ago, asking him if he would be willing to go back, to put his studies on pause, and help _put things back in order, and tie up some loose ends about You-Know-Who._

He’s tired. He’s so tired of this self-deprecation game. He’s tired of denying himself the opportunity of being happy. He’s just tired of being numb and resisting the call to _go back, go back, go back_.

Remus is not impulsive, no one would call him that. They’d call him controlled, sometimes a bit careless, and a few close people - only two or three still alive now - would call him sneaky and funny. Only one person would call him _maddening, beautiful, fucking beautiful, Moony, keep going…_

He takes his wand out, packs all his things, and with his heartbeat loud in his ears, he puts his jacket on, fishes for the letter from the Order - from Dumbledore - and looks at the plane ticket in there that he has been pretending he didn’t know was for today, and runs to the front office to ask for early termination of his lease. _He’ll write the letter for his programme and supervisor from the plane_ , he thinks, while he stumbles over his words, trying to explain that _no, he needs to leave today, he’ll pay any fee that he has to._

He runs out of the building, and he sees his neighbour looking at him from the railing of her balcony. Remus raises one hand and she smiles, puffing some smoke out of her mouth.

\---

His knuckles hurt from how hard he knocks on the door. He holds his breath when he hears the door chain coming off and the soft mumbling from the other side that he’s sure is someone saying something like _hey, Harry, we have a visitor today, do you remember I told you about him?_

When the door opens and Sirius stands in front of him, smiling softly and tired, Remus smiles back, even though he can feel tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Hey, Moony,” Sirius says, and his eyes are also bright. “Welcome back.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you think about this if you want!  
> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://wanderingbandurria.tumblr.com/)


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